1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to document management and control in a document management system including an image processing apparatus configured to input a document, a document management server configured to register and manage a document, and a client apparatus configured to communicate with the document management system and the document management server.
More specifically, the present invention relates to document management and control for a document management system capable of managing an image file (i.e., electronic file) obtained by an image processing apparatus (multifunction peripheral, copy machine, scanner, etc) that can scan a paper document and input a scanned image document.
2. Description of the Related Art
The network techniques enable personal computers (PCs) connected via a network to form a document management system that can store and manage electronic files as commonly usable documents.
In general, a document management system can be provided in an office including plural PCs connected via a network so that users can commonly use electronic files. Each PC user can transmit an electronic file via a network to the document management system. The document management system registers a received electronic file as a document. The registered electronic files can be accessed from each PC connected to the network. Each PC user can retrieve (or delete) a document managed in the document management system.
The above-mentioned document management system can be accessed by plural users operating their PCs. To improve the security, satisfying the following conditions is necessary to prevent an arbitrary user to freely access a document registered in the document management system.
1. Access right to an arbitrary document can be set.
2. Access of each user to a document can be controlled with reference to access right settings.
A conventional document management system was installed as an application operable on the OS. Each user installed a document management application on a PC.
On the other hand, recent web techniques enable each user to operate a document management system via a web browser.
Copy machines, multifunction peripherals, and scanners are image processing apparatus (image reading apparatus) that can be connected to a network and scan a paper document to obtain an electronic file (containing image data). An electronic file obtained from an image processing apparatus can be transmitted, via the network, and registered as a document in a document management system.
In this manner, a document management system can link with not only PCs but also image processing apparatus (image reading apparatus). For example, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-39411, access control can be employed to determine whether a paper document can be copied in an image reading apparatus that scans the document.
An advanced image processing apparatus includes a hard disk or comparable auxiliary storage device that can store scanned electronic files, and has a URL-send function for enabling a user to access via a web browser to an electronic file stored in the image processing apparatus.
FIG. 15 is an illustration of a conventional URL-send function for accessing an electronic file stored in the image processing apparatus.
However, according to the system shown in FIG. 15, an image processing apparatus itself determines accessibility to an electronic file stored in its storage unit. In short, an electronic file stored in the image processing apparatus is not linked to a document management system.
There may be an environment where an electronic file stored in an image processing apparatus can be managed by a document management system. In this case, address of an electronic file stored in the image processing apparatus can be registered beforehand in the document management server. If a client requests the document management server to inform the address of a requested document, the document management server notifies the client of the address of the requested document using a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) redirect function. The client can access the electronic file stored in the image processing apparatus with reference to address information (URL) indicating the storage place of the requested electronic file.